"Brent Benedict has been a great teammate at Virginia Tech, and we will miss his toughness," Tech head coach Frank Beamer said in a statement. "We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors, and he will always be a Hokie."

In the same release, head athletic trainer Mike Goforth provided an initial injury report to media.

Woody Baron is still recovering from offseason right ankle surgery and is not in camp. We are exploring the possibility of a redshirt since he played as a true freshman last season.

If healthy, Baron would've been a part of Tech's two-deep at defensive tackle. Now the Hokies will have to identify another d-tackle before the season starts. Tech has some options, albeit inexperienced ones. Freshman Vinny Mihota enrolled early, junior transfer (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) Wade Hansen got a good amount of reps during spring, and former Bethel standout, freshman Ricky Walker is enrolled.

Trey Edmunds will be full at practice on Monday with no restrictions. He is still working his way back from a broken leg suffered in the Virginia game eight months ago and back into football-specific movements.

The seems to jive with previous reports that Trey would be ready to go when camp opened. However, it seems like he needs to get back into a football groove.

Brandon Facyson is suffering from a right hip flexor and will be in blue (limited) on Monday. The stress reaction he suffered in the spring is cleared, and he will be full when the hip flexor clears.

Facyson's hip flexor issue is certainly something to monitor throughout camp. There's never a good injury, but defensive back is Tech's deepest position.

Kendrick Holland had left shoulder surgery on July 25 by Dr. Tony McPherron at LewisGale Montgomery Hospital. He will have a 6-8 month recovery time and will miss the season. He will take a redshirt season, and the hope is to have him full for the spring.

Holland is listed as 6-3, 188 which makes him one of Tech's biggest targets. There are a lot of fresh faces vying for playing time at an already deep position, but Holland may have been able to use his size to differentiate himself from the pack.

Demitri Knowles suffered a right ankle sprain in summer voluntary workouts and is not currently in camp. He is progressing well, and trainers do not anticipate any problems for the first game.

OK.

Devin Vandyke has a right lower leg stress fracture and will be out 6-8 weeks.

Devin Vandyke was one of the standouts of 2013 spring football, but has been limited with knee issues. He suffered a torn left ACL against Western Carolina last year and missed the remainder of the 2013 season. He was slowed by knee issues during the fall and redshirted in 2012. French wrote the following back in March about Devin.

Devin Vandyke also could fight for the starting job in the fall. Vandyke had a stellar 2013 spring game (he was my MVP), and has terrific instincts for being a free hitter at the mike spot. Unfortunately for Devin, his recovery from ACL surgery was delayed by an infection in the joint. That set back his timetable for return considerably, which could put his chance to be ready for the beginning of fall camp in jeopardy. I would have expected Vandyke to win the starting job if he was healthy.

And finally, the most intriguing news from the release...

Marshawn Williams had hernia surgery on July 25 and is expected to miss 3-6 weeks from the date of the surgery. He is questionable for the William & Mary game on August 30.

Immediately after I copied, pasted, and Tweeted the news from the injury report Williams responded to me.

Comments

#Herniagate This is not how I envisioned the opening day of camp going.

"Sure, I've been called a xenophobe, but the truth is, I'm not. I honestly just feel that America is the best country and the other countries aren't as good. That used to be called patriotism." Kenny Powers

Speedy and complete recovery to all of you. Only good thing I can think of from this report is that camp is back in session so it is almost kickoff time!

I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction:
“I served in the United States Navy"

I hate that for Devin Vandyke. I know it was a longshot after his knee injury and challenges with rehab, but I really would have expected him to win the mike linebacker job if healthy this season. The kid dominated the 2013 spring game against our starting group.

Facyson's injury is troubling. The Hokies secondary struggled a bit when Kyle Fuller went down, even with Exum joining the fray. Bud Foster put together so many unique coverage schemes that shut down some good offenses last season, but those schemes were all predicated on having three excellent corners (and all five guys having corner experience.) But, Bud TRUSTED all five guys. Once Fuller and Exum went down, the Hokies limited their coverage schemes, and it ultimately cost them against Maryland and UCLA.

As for Woody Baron, that makes defensive line depth worrisome. Mihota now can't really provide depth at end, and both Walker and Sobczak may need to be ready to play right away on the inside. Against high tempo teams, you have to be able to rotate defensive linemen.

^THIS. The media and thus the rest of the world now know about this situation, but the coaches have known since it first happened. I'd rather enter camp with injuries and have time to fill spots than lose players during camp, like Malleck and others last year. Granted, I'd rather have no injuries at all, but there are worse things. *knocks on wood then chops said wood*

As great as Bud is, even he has limitations. When the injuries mount up, it limits his options. e.g. last year...during the lat part of the season, we were a pretty mediocre defense because Bud could only do so much with what was left.

I have no inside info but I'd think this is probably an RGIII/Shanahan-type scenario. Player wants to be on the field and feels good enough to be on the field, but coach and/or training staff thinks they should take it a little slower.

I sure hope not, because that would mean beamer is just going to use him for his own personnel glory and fame and not care about the player... ;)

I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction:
“I served in the United States Navy"

Isn't this the opposite of the RGIII/Shanahan situation? I was under the impression that RGIII knew that he wasn't fully rehabbed (which anyone with eyes could see), but Shanahan wanted him to go out anyway and not only play, but run a bunch of option putting his knee at even more unnecessary risk. Shanahan knew he was on the hot seat and severely set back RGIII's rehab just to try to save his own job. I could be remembering the situation incorrectly, though.

No, I think you're remembering the situation correctly, but for some reason I thought RGIII was out there in the media claiming to be right as rain. Maybe we're thinking of two situations: Shanny being overly confident prior to that playoff game where RGIII clearly shouldn't have been playing where he tore his knee apart, and then again in the following offseason RGIII was always talking about being 100% ready for the beginning of the next year, which he still wasn't.

I'm too lazy to go look it up. I'm gonna go with both of us being right.